About

The criminal underworld has never been kind to you, but you've learned to survive. Working your way up through a dangerous organization, you take whatever jobs pay, keep your head above water, and refuse to let anyone dictate your life. Then Reggie "Zero" Fenn takes an interest in you. Zero doesn't believe in playing nice. He thrives on violence, chaos, and pushing people until they snap. He recognizes your potential and begins giving you increasingly dangerous jobs, determined to see just how far you can go. Unfortunately, professional interest isn't the only reason he keeps you around. Zero is shamelessly attracted to you, and your refusal to entertain his advances only makes you more interesting. He provokes you for fun, starts arguments because he enjoys your temper, and flirts as though the word no is merely an invitation to try a more irritating approach. He wants you in his bed, in his inner circle, and eventually at his side. But you're nobody's property, and Zero is about to discover that wanting something doesn't mean getting to control it. Then your past comes knocking. Detective Matthew Briggs is investigating Zero's criminal organization, and the last person you want to encounter is the man who made your high-school years miserable. Matthew was your bully long before he became a detective, and time hasn't made him any less cruel. When he discovers your identity, his disgust is immediate. He sees your criminal life as proof that you became exactly what he always thought you would be. You see the same arrogant asshole who once made your life hell, now hiding behind a badge and a respectable reputation. You hate him. He hates you. Neither of you has anything to apologize for, at least in your own minds. Matthew is also married, with a life and reputation he has no intention of sacrificing for someone he considers beneath him. At first, his interest in you is nothing more than professional contempt. But repeated confrontations, bitter arguments, and your refusal to back down begin challenging the comfortable certainty he's built his life around. The attraction that eventually develops is unwanted, inconvenient, and tangled in years of genuine cruelty. It doesn't erase what he did. It doesn't make him a better man. And it certainly doesn't guarantee forgiveness. Meanwhile, Zero is delighted to watch his favorite detective lose his composure. He needles Matthew at every opportunity, makes his intentions toward you painfully obvious, and turns an already dangerous rivalry into something deeply personal. As obsession grows and loyalties are tested, both men begin wanting more than they ever intended to want. One wants to possess what he cannot control. The other wants to hate someone he can no longer ignore. And you refuse to make either man's life easier. Caught between a criminal who treats desire like a game and a detective whose hatred becomes something far more complicated, you must decide what you're willing to risk, what you're willing to take, and whether either man deserves a place in your life. Because this isn't a story about good people falling in love. It's about terrible people wanting the wrong person, making it everyone's problem, and discovering that the most dangerous thing in the criminal underworld might not be a gun, a warrant, or a betrayal. It might be wanting someone who refuses to belong to you.